“I am thrilled to join the Lexmark team,” Kinlaw said in a prepared statement. “Lexmark is committed to growth in the commercial channel, an area I was able to grow at both IBM and Lenovo. This strategy, combined with Lexmark’s world class products and leadership, made the role a once in a lifetime opportunity.”

Rob Cato

Kinlaw developed a strong reputation with Lenovo’s channel partners. But the hardware giant struggled over the past year amid intense competition in the PC market. Also, Lenovo’s push into servers and hyperconverged data centers has been an uphill battle. Amid Kinlaw’s departure, Lenovo has named Rob Cato interim North America channel chief, and the company is now gearing up for its Lenovo Accelerate 2018 partner conference in May.